Startup Life/Marketing

# Marketing
## Context
I sent this email to my new marketing intern and I will quote it verbatim as it represents my high-level thoughts on marketing/branding.
## The email
*Hello X,*
### Time to level up
What you have been doing is however basic, and that's fine because it's the lowest hanging fruit.
In my head, there are 3 steps to reaching marketing nirvana.
1. Reactionary marketing
2. Seed marketing
3. Sex marketing
Allow me to explain.
---
#### (Your current stage) Level 1: Reactionary marketing
This is basic marketing. You have an event, a hook, you push it out, people catch onto it, and for that moment, you get X users. Rinse and repeat. This is grunt work stage.
What I did recently with Kloudsec is an example of this.
*New product*
1. Write a title with an angle
* Post it on somewhere with a huge crowd
* Exploit crowd's attention span to gain N users
* News die down
* This is also what you are doing with Gom's marketing now
*Netflix released*
1. Create partnerships / get media coverage
* Exploit hype to get N users
* Netflix dies down
* You should always be doing this, even if you are at stage 3. This is the lowest hanging fruit, and we should continually ride the media waves even if we are the monopoly. There will always be situations like this.
---
#### Level 2: Seed marketing
Seed marketing, is the equivalent of being of Gom being #2 on Chrome Web Store. It means you plant a seed that grows into a fruit tree that bears fruit consistently.
Because of a specific circumstance, it brings in a constant flow of users and does not die down. It can be seasonal, doesn't matter. It should not involve money. Ads don't count. 
Constant input leading to a proportional constant output is not marketing. It's just buying users.
Some examples of seed marketing:
* A tutorial blog post on how to access Netflix's full catalog with step-by-step guide that is on the front page of Google search results for the term "how to use vpn for netflix" and brings in 3000 pages views daily (Because there will always be people searching for that)
Being constantly brought up on any hardwarezone post regarding MDA blocks
* HideMyAss began as a free web service that school kids enter suppose xhamster.com (a porn site), and it'll mirror the site contents on hidemyass.com. This re-routing tool basically made the business for HideMyAss VPN because it brought them consistent traffic.
The strategy here is to target a significantly large distribution channel. It can be forum, search engine, blog, app store, whatever, and being present on it for the right topics.
I will like you to grow into this level now that you've conquered level 1.
Highly recommended articles on seed marketing
* http://priceonomics.com/the-content-marketing-handbook/
* https://www.quicksprout.com/2013/10/14/move-over-content-marketing-why-creating-tools-can-be-a-better-investment-than-creating-content/
---
#### Level 3: Sex marketing
If seed marketing is marketing with a one-time investment that leads to consistent returns, sex marketing is a one-time investment that achieves exponential returns. This is non-trivial, and if you hit this level, you'll be the best damn marketing person on earth.
Examples:
* Linkedin virus-like referrals. If you sign in using Linkedin, they will use dark-patterns to ask you to give them your gmail contacts, for which they will spam all your contacts with an invite. So, for every linkedin user, supposed Linkedin spams 100 Gmail contacts, and if 3 converts. This leads to exponential growth
* https://website.grader.com - Hubspot built a free tool for marketers to use to check their sites, for which Hubspot
gets the email address of the marketer (free lead)
gets free marketing because user can post results on twitter (possible exponential growth)
Some things to research on
* K-factor (virality)
-----
### On Positioning
Before I say anything, read: http://firstround.com/review/Positioning-Your-Startup-is-Vital-Heres-How-to-Do-It-Right/
We should have this nailed.
Secondly, I believe our positioning should be sustainable and daring. This is why I'm dubious on your stand on Gom being a Netflix Unblocker. Surely we can be more unique that. This Netflix wave will die.
Be daring, make mistakes.
See: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1xblv9/hey_reddit_so_i_created_an_android_browser_for/
This was how I advertised Javelin Browser, before it became Javelin Browser. It was #1 on Reddit r/Android and I got 3000 over new users in the first day. It also got Google to block the app, for which I had to release Javelin. Be daring, just don't get us banned from Chrome Web Store, mine is an extreme example.
-----
#### On Goals and metrics
I want you to be the best damn marketing person I hire. I believe you can. You just need to:
* Be hard on yourself for results
* Be more daring (more risk == higher upside)
* Measure your results
And the best marketer achieves one and only one thing: **bringing positive leads to our product**. Your job should not be on conversion, that's the product manager's job (aka me).
So your goal is basically having a lot of people talking about us. And the longer you stay, esp if you grow to level 2/3, I should see a consistent growth of mentions on Gom VPN.
This is why now I'll change your metrics to total mentions of certain keywords / per week:
"gom vpn", "gom", "getgom", "get gom"
I will be measuring this using Google Alerts. If I'm getting 10 mentions per week, hopefully by the end of the year, I should hear 1000 mentions per day, growing at a rate of 15% per week. :)

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